4G

If you think the Internet's a crowded place today, guess what? One of the Internets founders (insert Al Gore jokes here) Tim Berners-Lee, keynoting at the 18th Annual World Wide Web conference in Madrid this week, believes that the best of the Internet is yet to come.
"The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past," he said.
The ITU report, Measuring the Information Society, The ICT Development Index, finds that only 23% of the global population currently uses the Internet, as compared to over 60% of the world's population that is currently subscribing to mobile cellular phone services.
An article on Breitbart quotes Internet co-founder Vinton Cerf who says, "We will have more Internet, larger numbers of users, more mobile access, more speed, more things online and more appliances we can control over the Internet."
I for one, think we all can agree that the future of the Web is mobile. As smartphones proliferate and becomes less expensive; as next-generation wireless networks bring Internet access into every far-flung corner of the globe; as more people are able to get access to more information, we will see the truly transformational power of the Internet facilitate a freer exchange of ideas, resulting in new advances in technology, society, etc...
Now if only we can do away with e-Mail spam...

This morning, over at Seeking Alpha, there's a nice article from ValueExpectations (a stock blog and investment newsletter that provides institutional quality equity research) on the difference between AT&T and Verizon. ValueExpectations.com is run by the founders of The Applied Finance Group and Toreador Research and Trading.
To start, the article separates AT&T and Verizon from the third place U.S. wireless provider, Sprint.
Then, it compares the relative value proposition of both top wireless operators.
AT&T's market cap is $150 billion to Verizon's $90 billion.
AT&T is considered to have the better 3G network and a partnership with Apple to offer what is considered the hottest smartphone on the market, the iPhone. Verizon however has a "decent" 3G network, according to the article, and through its partnership with and support for several Blackberry models, is riding a positive trend.
Verizon's FiOS is considered the wave of the future, delivering "lightning-fast fiber optics" while AT&T's FTTN (fiber to the node) strategy is somewhat wanting.

Great. Another acronym.
I guess in the world of tech that we inhabit, that's to be expected.
This one's not so bad provided it's pronounced volt and not volt-EE.
What am I talking about? I'll tell you.
NokiaSiemens Networks has reportedly come up with an approach for providing voice service over LTE networks that:
...operators can implement with simple and cost-effective software and hardware upgrades* to their existing 3GPP circuit-switch core network. The "Fast Track VoLTE" approach provides a cost-efficient way to offer voice over LTE (VoLTE) in any mobile network architecture.
Note the asterisk.

President Obama's economic stimulus plan passed its first hurdle today, clearing the Senate, en route to the House.
Among the many elements of the bill, there is nearly $7billion in available funding for the delivery of wireless broadband to rural areas.
Fred Campbell, the President of the Wireless Communications Association International issued the following statement:
"WCAI is pleased that the Senate stimulus bill includes $6.65 billion in grants for broadband deployment. As the only broadband platform that is capable of providing access everywhere, all the time, and at affordable prices, wireless broadband is essential to broadband connectivity, especially in rural areas.

According to industry researcher In-Stat, "Broadband communications have become a crucial communications tool, so demand for mobile WiMAX technology remains strong."
But some vendors, especially those slow to migrate to the latest standards, might not be willing to wait around for that demand to translate into tangible sales.
"While the market for 802.16e will continue to grow, it does not mean happy days are here for every vendor," says Daryl Schoolar, In-Stat analyst. "In-Stat expects to see more infrastructure vendors pull back or leave the WiMAX market entirely. This is especially true for vendors that have been slow moving from 802.16d to the 802.16e standard."
According to the In-Stat research:
· WiMAX base station revenues grew by 137.9% in 2008.
· Global WiMAX subscriptions will be over 85 million by the end of 2013.
· Deployments of 802.16e are contributing to the decline of sales in the fixed WiMAX standard, 802.16d.
Seems to me that this market opportunity is real and continues to evolve. With some vendors pulling out before the market matures, it appears that there will be more to go around for the remaining players that do hang in there.

So there's been quite a bit of buzz this past few weeks about the potential demise of WiMAX.
First Nokia stopped production of their WiMAX device, then there was some news about Intel writing off their entire investment in the venture with Clearwire... It was covered all over TMCnet, but Rich summed it up nicely in his post: The Trillion Dollar Question - Is WiMAX Dying?
Now, LTE has its proponents and WiMAX has its detractors, but Carl Ford, writing on the 4GWE blog points out the following:
While many want me to point to LTE as the clear winner, I don't think this would be a sign of WiMAX's apocalypse. I instead see this as a prudent move on Nortel's part to emphasize the pieces of the solutions they own. Partnerships in Telecom are pretty easily forced by the carriers, and the real story is that no carrier is forcing Nortel to support WiMAX.This maybe proof that WiMAX is in trouble, but it's more likely proof that the legacy Nortel customers are not looking for Nortel to go into new areas with them.
So I asked Scenna Tabesh, director of marketing communications for the WiMAX Forum, for some insight into the Nortel situation as well as the future co-existence of the two 4G approaches, LTE and WiMAX.

The femtocell is indicative of much in the technology world these days.
Analysts are generally in agreement that the market opportunity is large, and yet fits and starts - typical of early days in any sector -- abound. Verizon's newly released Network Extender has met with mixed results. T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home service was well received, but ran into a bit of a patent issue late last year. And Ars Technica is reporting today that AT&T slipped up and released details of their offering into the space:
The new offering will be called 3G MicroCell, supports voice and 3G data, and allows 4 simultaneous calls or data sessions.The product details reported on a new AT&T page, since pulled, were discovered by Engadget and SlipperyBrick.
Adding to the femtocell conversation, IntelliNet Technologies today announced the development of a new integrated femtocell gateway, which combines a femtocell access point controller with a carrier grade security gateway in an industry standard AdvancedTCA platform.
The idea behind this offering is to give service providers and wireless operators the ability to manage thousands of femtocells at once.
Anjan Ghosal, president and CEO of IntelliNet Technologies said:
Cellular phone service is now in line with traditional wireline as a subscriber's primary mode of communication.

A new certification program, designed to act as a benchmark for mobile operators, backhaul providers and end users was launched by the IP/MPLS Forum today.

The Mobile Backhaul Certification program will initially focus on certifying standards-compliant implementations of Circuit Emulation services over MPLS as defined in the IP/MPLS Forum's MPLS Mobile Backhaul Initiative (MMBI), which defines how MPLS can be used to backhaul TDM traffic for mobile operators.

The certification program will lay out a set of guidelines and test procedures and will be administered by Iometrix, the Forum's certified lab partner.

According to Andrew G. Malis, Chairman and President of the IP/MPLS Forum:

The Mobile Backhaul Certification Program represents a needed step in the evolution of MPLS solutions which have already proven in lab trials to be ready to meet the needs of operators around the world.

The first group of certified vendors will be announced at the MPLS Ethernet World Congress in Paris this February.

Market researcher ABI Research has released a new study that points to continued enthusiasm for LTE deployment.
Coming on the heels of a turbulent week for WiMAX (see: Intel's $950 million investment write-down and Nokia ceasing production of its only WiMAX device) it's a positive sign indeed for this 4G technology.
Now before we get carried away with the premature burial of WiMAX, it's important to note that Clearwire did light up a new city this week (Portland, OR) and has plans to start service in up to nine other cities in 2009. Let's wait before we get out the shovels.
Still ABI's report Long Term Evolution (LTE) draws attention to the fact that Verizon, (possibly sensing some blood in the water?) has reportedly moved up their LTE deployment plans by a year, from 2010 to 2009.
ABI notes that globally, 18 operators have announced LTE rollout plans.
Writing in the recent report, ABI Research senior analyst Nadine Manjaro said,
ABI Research believes that NTT will also deploy LTE in Japan in 2009. We forecast that by 2013 operators will spend over $8.6 billion on LTE base station infrastructure alone. For operators that have already deployed 3G networks, LTE will be a key CAPEX driver over the next five years.
Manjaro also notes that LTE application development could be a major driver of investment as operators explore which services to deploy.
As an example, Manjaro looks to Sprint and Verizon and their plans to provide third-party access to their GPS data.
The resulting new applications will tie mobility and presence aspects together to create more compelling services than in the past.